


Pretty Dolls

by hiddencait



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Layers and layers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Dolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotsofstuffandpaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotsofstuffandpaper/gifts).



> So I saw this prompt, and I was certain I was writing a ficlet about Tasha and ballet. That...isn't how this turned out. AdrianZ also mentioned Russian traditions, and then ended up being the direction this went in.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this treat, my dear! Even though it's definitely a little on the angsty side.

Natasha worries sometimes that nothing of her core remains. That she is no more than a shell atop many others, simply layers of the people she’s built for a mission or had her Red Room handlers build for her.

Perhaps she is one of those matryoshka dolls the tourists love so much. Few if any are truly authentic anymore, the very idea more what a shopper wants to see than what the toy ever really was. The dolls that make up Natasha were expensive, of course; the Red Room spared no expense, but they are, she thinks, of terribly little value. Each face is a pretty forgery, nestled one within another and another, each a smaller part of her being until finally at the center is the tiniest kernel of something solid, something real.

Assuming there’s anything there at all.

That is her greatest fear, the one she never speaks even to those she trusts most: that the heart of her is a void.

That ‘Natasha’ never truly exists. 


End file.
